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On 8 March, a jury took three hours to render a guilty verdict against Guy Reffitt, a January 6 insurrectionist. Donald Trump could not have been pleased. DC is where Trump would be tried for any crimes relating to his admitted campaign to overturn the election.

Jurors there would have no trouble finding that the evidence satisfies all statutory elements required to convict Trump, including his criminal intent, the most challenging to prove. That is our focus here.

A 3 March New York Times story asserted that [b]uilding a criminal case against Mr Trump is very difficult for federal prosecutors ... given the high burden of proof ... [and] questions about Mr Trumps mental state.

The clear implication is that justice department leaders may simply be following the path of prudence in hesitating to indict, or even to robustly investigate, Mr Trump. But based on the already public evidence and theres undoubtedly lots more thats not yet public no vigilant prosecutor would be deterred by the difficulty of convincing a jury about Trumps state of mind. Full speed ahead is now the only proper course.

The former president is vulnerable to charges of conspiring to defraud the United States, 18 USC 371, and obstructing a congressional proceeding, 18 USC 1512(c)(2).

Regarding 371s intent requirement, the US supreme court has ruled that conspiracies to defraud the United States include plots entered for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful functions of any department of Government using deceit, craft or trickery, or ... means that are dishonest.

The mental state required for 1512 is a corrupt intent to obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. In Arthur Andersen v United States, the supreme court said corrupt meant dishonest or wrongful, immoral, depraved, or evil.

The mountain of already public evidence would surely lead a DC jury to reject Trumps defense that that he honestly believed his own big lie that widespread ballot fraud had deprived him of victory, and therefore that his intent was innocent.

First, Trump knew that the 60-plus court cases seeking to overturn the votes in contested states had failed.

Second, as the former Michigan US attorney Barbara McQuade has compellingly shown, five of Trumps top officials told him unequivocally that all the fraud claims were false.

Third, Georgias secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told Trump the same thing during the infamous recorded call in which Trump asked Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes, exactly one more than needed to overturn the states election.

That call alone screams corrupt intent. And the barely veiled way Trump threatened Raffensperger in that call reinforces Trumps evil state of mind.

Fourth, Trumps speech immediately preceding the Capitol attack included a provable, telling lie that he would join the Capitol march with the crowd even though his pre-speech schedule showed no such plan and Trump did nothing of the sort. A properly instructed jury would likely conclude that this lie reflected Trumps desire to remain far from the violence he had encouraged, giving him both physical safety and plausible deniability and further evidencing a corrupt state of mind.

Fifth, Trumps failure for three hours to call off the siege after it began, notwithstanding violent televised images and entreaties from his children, advisers and allies despite his undoubted duty to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed was manifestly depraved.

Sixth, when Trump belatedly asked the insurrectionists to go home, he called them patriots who should remember this day for ever. A federal judge wrote in an 18 February opinion that a reasonable observer could read that tweet as ratifying the violence and other illegal acts that took place that day.

Seventh, willful ignorance of incriminating facts is equivalent to knowledge. Drug couriers cannot escape conviction by having chosen not to ask what was inside the heroin-containing package they were handsomely paid to import. In Trumps case, his purported belief in election-changing voter fraud was at the very least willfully blind to the facts before him.

Finally, another of Trumps anticipated innocent intent defenses that he was relying on his lawyer John Eastman would fail. Eastman has stated that it was on his advice that Trump sought to have Pence reject electoral votes for President Biden or to delay the entire vote.

Even if Trump and Eastman had the requisite attorney-client relationship, which is dubious as a matter of fact, the defense has a gaping hole: under the law, Trumps reliance must have been reasonable.

Far from being reasonable, Eastmans claim that that Pence was the ultimate arbiter of the electoral count was utter nonsense. Trump would be unable to produce any lawyer who supported that constitutionally absurd theory and could withstand even amateur cross-examination.

A concluding point. Some observers have expressed fear that a single Trump-supporting juror could hang the jury, suggesting that the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, might just deem that risk to be too great to be worth running. But as the BBCs observer of Guy Reffitts trial noted, every juror there saw through the smoke the defendant was blowing. Jurors are instructed to use their common sense, and the jury in Reffitt did just that.

A DC jury would do the same in a trial of the conspiracys central actor. Once all the evidence is expeditiously gathered, with or without the special counsel that we recommend, the justice department must indict him.

Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb university professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University. Follow him @tribelaw. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy

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The evidence is clear: its time to prosecute Donald Trump - The Guardian

The media have been quick to rubbish Attorney General Merrick GarlandMerrick GarlandGOP senators seek probe of 'egregious' conditions at NJ nursing home The post-Trump era has begun Biden signs reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act MORE for his failure so far to indict former President TrumpDonald TrumpGOP talking point could turn to Biden's 'underwhelming' Russia response House Oversight Committee opens investigation into New Mexico 2020 election audit Hunter Biden paid off tax liability amid ongoing grand jury investigation: report MORE over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They have tarred him with epithets worthy of Trump himself, such as Merrick the Mild and Merrick the Meek. And a host of former prosecutors and law professors have criticized his inaction, saying that Garland needs to indict Trump to vindicate the rule of law.

We dont know for certain, but it appears that Garlands Justice Department has yet to convene a grand jury to investigate the affair. Were they subpoenaing witnesses before the grand jury, we would have heard something about it from reporters hanging around the court house or from the witnesses lawyers.

Justice appears to be riding the coattails of the House select committee, which has served a flurry of subpoenas, and has already referred two recalcitrant witnesses, Stephen Bannon and Mark MeadowsMark MeadowsNC investigators open probe into Mark Meadows voter registration Is Merrick Garland finally ready to indict Donald Trump? Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump campaign adviser Cleta Mitchell, five others MORE, to Justice for criminal prosecution only to see Bannon indicted for a misdemeanor and Meadows so far uncharged some fourscore and seven days after the criminal reference.

The case against Meadows is a simple one, and the long delay is vexing. It is possible that Justice is using the time to investigate, but this seems unlikely in light of the Doric simplicity of the facts. Meadows refused to testify. Full stop. It is also possible that Justice had decided not to indict Meadows for contempt of Congress; but then, why the silence? If they had let Meadows know he was off the hook, he would have loudly told the press about how he was exonerated. Finally, it is possible that the government and Meadows are crafting a deal, some testimony in exchange for no indictment. Time will certainly tell us the answer.

Garland has vowed to follow the law and the facts wherever they may lead him. But many legal observers have concluded he is timid and overly cautious, fearful that we appear to be a banana republic indicting, and possibly jailing, our former leaders because they are now politically out of favor. Of course, the total answer is that we look like a banana republic if we dont hold our former leaders accountable for the serious crimes they may have committed, such as sedition, incitement to insurrection or conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Frustrated at the inaction, the redoubtable Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has called on Garland to appoint a special counsel. Tribe argues that a special counsel is the best way to reassure the country that no one is above the law, justice is nonpartisan and fears of political fallout will not determine the decision on whether to bring charges. Tribe says that such an appointment is imperative.

Appointment of a special counsel would give Garland some political cover, even though a special counsel is not institutionally independent of the Justice Department. Yet, so far, Tribes urgent clarion call has fallen on deaf ears.

Trumps strategy of course is to run out the clock. With the midterm elections less than eight months off, and a widely expected outcome that Republicans will take the House, the select committee investigating Jan. 6 may be on its last legs.

Yet, as the man said, it isnt over til its over. Only recently, there have been unmistakable signs and portents that the inquiry into the events of Jan. 6 may have brought Trump to his Watergate moment. The most notable events in recent days are as follows:

If Reffitt receives a stiff sentence, and Tarrio is convicted, they may be incentivized to cooperate with the government as did Oath Keepers member Joshua James, who is cooperating as part of a guilty plea for obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, and for seditious conspiracy culminating in the Jan. 6 attack. Such testimony of co-conspirators could provide evidence supporting broader conspiracy charges against Trump or his closest associates.

As the Washington Post concluded in its article reporting the Reffitt verdict: "The notion that Attorney General Merrick Garland is slow-walking charges against Trump or has decided not to go after him is inconsistent with the departments actions to date. Garland might just be warming up to take on the man whose refusal to accept defeat resulted in the most lethal armed insurrection since the Civil War."

As Trump signaled to the Proud Boys in his September 2020 debate with Biden, stand back and stand by. Garland may not be shooting so many blanks as his critics claim.

James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

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Is Merrick Garland finally ready to indict Donald Trump? | TheHill - The Hill

Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Michael Flynn and the other leaders of the American neofascist movement are very generous, in their own sinister fashion. They make their escalating threats of right-wing violence, insurrection and other forms of mayhem in public. There is little skulduggery or subterfuge involved.

Why are they so bold? Because they have suffered no serious long-term negative consequences for their behavior. And for the most part, the Republican fascists and the larger white right are winning in their war against American democracy. Momentum is on their side. Why should they conceal their intentions?

When disaster follows be it some version of Jan. 6 (which is almost inevitable) or other acts of right-wing terror the American people and their leaders will not be able to claim ignorance. They have repeatedly been warned and have chosen to ignore those warnings.

RELATED:In the coming second American Civil War, which side are you on?

Last Saturday at a rally in Florence, South Carolina, Donald Trump continued with his threats of white supremacist violence. He suggested that his political cult members should enter into a lethal blood pact and fight an existential battle against the phantasm of "critical race theory" as proof of their loyalty:

Getting critical race theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values, it's also a matter of national survival. We have no choice. The fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down and they must do this lay down their very lives to defend their country. If we allow the Marxists and communists and socialists to teach our children to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or protect our great country or its freedom.

Trump's commands are part of a larger pattern of behavior. At recent rallies in Arizona and Texas, he made similar hints at a "race war", and other appeals to fascist violence. Histhreats are becoming ever clearer and less veiled: His suggestion that his followers must be willing to die in order to stop the imaginary threat of "critical race theory" almost directly echo the infamous neo-Nazi "14 words" slogan and pledge.

How did the American mainstream news media respond to Trump's most recent white supremacist threats of violence and "race war"? For the most part, theyignored it. If an obligatory comment was offered about Trump's hate rally in South Carolina, it was derisive. Those reporters who did write about Trump's speech defaulted to obsolescent and dangerous habits of "horse race" political journalism, or whitewashing Trump's speech by focusing on "policy issues" or his signals that he is likely to run for president again in 2024. Such an approach normalizes, and therefore empowers, Trumpism and neofascism.

America's mainstream news media and larger political class continue to demonstrate that they are unwilling to respond to the escalating threats posed by the Trump movement and the larger white right.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser and U.S. Army general turned coup plotter, spoke last weekend at a "ReAwaken America" event in Southern California that brought together election-fraud truthers, QAnon adherents and other conspiracy theorists. He also threatened violence against educators who resist the Republican moral panic over"critical race theory":

We need you to charge the machine gun nest. Maybe I'm just asking you to dig a little bit deeper there or hold this side of the line, or form up cause we're gonna counterattack over here, and that counterattack is, we're gonna go after school boards.

Flynn's summoning of violence was not random hyperbole: He was an intelligence officer and is a trained expert in psy-ops, propaganda and manipulation.

Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and an expert on right-wing extremism, was among the first people to sound the alarm about Flynn's recent comments. He offered further context in an email to Salon:

Flynn's general message is that there is a global cabal that runs the world, which is controlled by elites who want to erode national sovereignty. The supposed global elites use the media, universities and other institutions to manipulate and control the population. Part of these claims is that there is a "deep state" of career civil servants and government officials who really run things and that elected officials do not.

I am most concerned with supervisor of elections and secretary of state races. These officials in swing states, most of whom were establishment Republicans, refused to go along with the Big Lie and did their duty in 2020. That is why it is a high priority for Trump, Flynn, Bannon and others to replace them. These are low profile and low dollar races that can be won with far less effort than others. These are also races that the GOP is intensely focused on and the Democrats are not. If election fraud conspiracy theorists take over the offices that run and administer our elections, coupled with all the new "voter fraud" legislation, that would be a huge threat to the survival of our democracy.

As with Trump, the mainstream news media was largely mute in response to Flynn's comments.

In the Age of Trump and beyond, the Republican fascists' tactics of stochastic terrorism in combination with increasingly overt and direct threats of political violence against Democrats, liberals, Black and brown people and other targeted "enemy" groups have proven highly effective. TheCapitol attack of January 2021 was a direct result of these tactics.

Domestic terrorism and other law enforcement experts are warning that right-wing extremists have been empowered by events such as Jan. 6, and continue to be a great (and growing) threat to the country's safety and security.The Department of Homeland Security has warned of an increased likelihood of right-wing terrorism and other political violence during the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

Election board members and other public officials, particularly including school board members, find themselves under siege by threats of violence and intimidation. Public opinion and other research has shown that millions of Trump supporters are willing to support political violence and terrorism in order to "save" their notion of "traditional" America.

In recent interview at the Washington Post, political scientistBarbara Walter, an expert on civil wars and political violence, discussed the escalating threats America now faces:

There are definitely lots of groups on the far right who want war. They are preparing for war. And not talking about it does not make us safer.

What we're heading toward is an insurgency, which is a form of a civil war. That is the 21st-century version of a civil war, especially in countries with powerful governments and powerful militaries, which is what the United States is. And it makes sense. An insurgency tends to be much more decentralized, often fought by multiple groups. Sometimes they're actually competing with each other. Sometimes they coordinate their behavior. They use unconventional tactics. They target infrastructure. They target civilians. They use domestic terror and guerrilla warfare. Hit-and-run raids and bombs.

We've already seen this in other countries with powerful militaries, right? The IRA took on the British government. Hamas has taken on the Israeli government. These are two of the most powerful militaries in the world. And they fought for decades. And in the case of Hamas I think we could see a third intifada. And they pursue a similar strategy.

Here it's called leaderless resistance. And that method of how to defeat a powerful government like the United States is outlined in what people are calling the bible of the far right: "The Turner Diaries," which is this fictitious account of a civil war against the U.S. government. It lays out how you do this. And one of the things it says is,Do not engage the U.S. military. You know, avoid it at all costs. Go directly to targets around the country that are difficult to defend and disperse yourselves so it's hard for the government to identify you and infiltrate you and eliminate you entirely.

Walter continued by explaining that she was not surprised by the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and that in fact her "biggest emotion was just relief":

It was just, Oh my gosh, this is agift. Because it's bringing it out into the public eye in the most obvious way. And the result has to be that we can't deny or ignore that we have a problem. Because it's right there before us. And what has been surprising, actually, is how hard the Republican Party has worked to continue to deny it and to create this smokescreen and in many respects, how effective that's been, at least among their supporters. Wow: Even the most public act of insurrection, probably a treasonous act that 10, 20 years ago would have just cut to the heart of every American, there are still real attempts to deny it. But it was a gift because it brought this cancer ... out into the open.

The American political class, most of the news media and other elites remain committed to denial and happy-talk fables about the dire realities now facing the country. That applies to most of the public as well. But because of their experience with slavery, Jim and Jane Crow and other forms of white supremacy and fascist violence, Black Americans as well as others who have suffered under power know to take these threats seriously.

In a previous essay at Salon, I warned that the fascist train is bearing down on the American people and that too many of them have convinced themselves that if they ignore the danger, they will somehow magically escape the destruction. Many white Americans in particular believe, consciously or otherwise, that white privilege (or their class, their gender or their religion) will protect them from the fascist onslaught. That is a massive and potentially fatal error of both assumption and inference. American fascism is being powered by white privilege in its most lethal form, but ultimately it will spare no one, of any race or color.

Read more on the rising threat of political violence in America:

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Donald Trump, Michael Flynn call for violence they're not kidding, but the media doesn't care - Salon

Donald Trump Jr. has suggested sending his father to Europe to meet with NATO leaders to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine instead of President Joe Biden.

The former president's eldest son claimed that having Biden speak to European leaders at a NATO summit in Brussels on March 24 would "embolden our enemies further."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed on Tuesday that Biden will meet face-to-face with his European counterparts in the Belgium capital. He will also attend a scheduled European Council summit to discuss imposing further sanctions against Russia and provide further humanitarian support to those affected by the conflict, which is entering its third week.

"Sending Biden to Europe for 'High Stakes' NATO talks will only embolden our enemies further," Trump Jr. tweeted.

"If you want to get something done right send Trump."

Trump Jr.'s tweet arrived after his father appeared to attempt to revise history regarding his relationship with NATO.

Before he entered office, Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the coalition while president if more countries didn't meet the minimum spending requirements of 2 percent of GDP.

In 2019, The New York Times reported that Trump discussed pulling the U.S. out of NATO, a move that would have emboldened Russia and Vladimir Putin. According to the report, Trump considered the military alliance a financial drain and was unhappy with the other countries that failed to meet the spending targets he had set.

Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, told The Times pulling out of the Western alliance, which has been a deterrent of Russian aggression since the fall of the Soviet Union, would be "a geopolitical mistake of epic proportions."

"Even discussing the idea of leaving NATOlet alone actually doing sowould be the gift of the century for Putin," Stavridis said.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump attempted to claim credit for the continuation of the alliance and the military support being given to the country being attacked by Russia.

"I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars," Trump said in a February 28 statement.

"Also, it was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets."

It was noted at the time that Trump threatened to withhold weapons from Ukraine in a 2019 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky where he was accused of attempting to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, ahead of ahead of the 2020 election, which lead to Trump's first impeachment.

Recently, Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton told The Washington Post that he believed the former president would have pulled the U.S. out of NATO had he won reelection in 2020, and that Putin was "waiting" for him to do that.

In another interview with SiriusXM's Julie Mason, Bolton added that the U.S. would be in "a lot worse shape" had Trump followed through with his threats to withdraw from NATO.

"I think one of the reasons that Putin did not move during Trump's term in office was [that] he saw the president's hostility with NATO...and to Putin's mind, it's a binary proposition: A weaker NATO is stronger Russia," Bolton said.

"So I think Putin saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him and thought, maybe in a second term, Trump would make good on his desire to get out of NATO, and then it would just ease Putin's path just that much more."

In a tweet ahead of the "extraordinary" summit on March 24, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: "We will address Russia's invasion of Ukraine, our strong support for Ukraine, and further strengthening NATO's deterrence & defense.

"At this critical time, North America & Europe must continue to stand together."

The White House has been contacted for comment.

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Donald Trump Jr. Wants His Father To Attend NATO Summit Instead of Biden - Newsweek

Donald Trump had a notoriously close relationship with Vladimir Putin during his time in office as US president, with the American even labelling the Russian president as a friend, however he now has revealed just why Putin invaded Ukraine.

Trump has been roundly criticised for his public admiration of Putin, but he really doesn't seem to mind as long as his own base continues to laud his every move.

"He wants to rebuild the Soviet Union," Trump told Jeanine Pirro in a radio interview with Fox News.

"They had a country, you could see it was a country where there was a lot of love and, you know, we're doing it because someone wants to make their country bigger or wants to rebuild back to the way it used to be when it wasn't really working too well."

Trump continued to describe Putin as a person with a big ego, who would do 'unspeakable things' if he continues to feel cornered by Ukrainian resistance and Western sanctions.

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Donald Trump reveals the reason why Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine - Marca English